What Does Ezekiel 27:13 Mean in the King James?
Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants: they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The market’s cargo includes living souls: the verse places people beside bronze as things exchanged.
THE MEANING
The verse lays bare what the market holds: whole human lives are exchanged alongside bronze vessels. “Persons” names living souls, while “men” names human beings; the line makes the commodification plain wherever wealth turns people into inventory.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a prosperous market is morally neutral because it trades only goods: this market’s wealth includes people.
THE ROOT
נֶפֶשׁ
nephesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
To take respite or be refreshed; in the noun nephesh, the living self or person.
“persons” in this verse is nephesh. Here nephesh names a living person, the object of a transaction. The same consonants form naphash, to rest or be refreshed; the word family holds the living subject whose rest and personhood the market treats as property.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: Living soul, person, or self
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the word rendered “persons”: the traded goods are living people, not an abstraction.
naphash: To take respite or be refreshed
נָפַשׁ
This verb shares the same root consonants and links the person in the market list to a living being capable of rest and renewal.
אָדָם
adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
Human; linked by Genesis wordplay to the ground, adamah.
“men” in this verse is adam. The Hebrew phrase is nephesh adam, a living soul of a human. Adam echoes adamah, ground, in Genesis; here the market counts a ground-born human being among its wares.
ALSO GROWS
adam: Human being
אָדָם
This names the person whose living soul is placed in the market’s inventory.
adamah: Ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
The sound-shape links the human to the ground in Genesis, adding the image of a formed person reduced to merchandise.
THE PATTERN
Scripture exposes a society’s order of value when it names human lives among its commodities.
And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.THE THREAD
If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from among you.Both verses use נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, living soul or person) for the human being caught in the trade: Ezekiel places people in a market, while Deuteronomy describes making merchandise of a person and selling him. The shared word makes clear that the market’s inventory is a living human life.
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